We are pleased to announce the ten young writers who have been selected for the fifth annual Locarno Film Festival Critics Academy. This workshop for aspiring film critics, created as a joint initiative with IndieWire and the Locarno Film Festival and with support from Film Comment magazine, the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists, and Penske Media Corporation, takes place in Locarno during the festival, from August 3–13. The program is designed to nurture promising critics and journalists through coverage opportunities at festival screenings and events; a U.S. version of the Critics Academy takes place in New York during the New York Film Festival.

More than 100 applications were submitted by aspiring writers from around the world, and 10 finalists were selected—six by Film Comment and IndieWire editors and four by the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists. The Critics Academy will work under the guidance of IndieWire editors and leaders at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and participants will cover the festival with film reviews, articles on sidebar events, and interviews with festival guests for potential publication in IndieWire, Film Comment, and Locarno’s Pardo Live.

One of the oldest film festivals in the world, Locarno is also one of the most diverse, with a program that blends first-time filmmakers, festival favorites, and rarities for cinephiles with mainstream crowd-pleasers. Over the course of the Critics Academy, participants will have the opportunity to cover all of these areas, and will also partake in candid roundtable discussions with working critics and other members of the industry to put their work in context.

Selected participants for the 2016 Locarno Critics Academy:
Mariama Baldé, Switzerland
Annabel Brady-Brown, Australia
Kelley Dong, USA/Korea
Lili Hering, Switzerland
Franziska Meierhofer. Switzerland
Elia Molo, Switzerland
Raquel Morais, Portugal
Ingrid Oliveira, Brazil
Andrew Rogers, USA
Fanta Sylla, France